


Finding Home

by Eaven



Series: Dried Lavender and You [1]
Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Angst, F/M, Fluff, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-21
Updated: 2016-06-21
Packaged: 2018-07-16 10:10:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,545
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7263742
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eaven/pseuds/Eaven
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the Inquisitor and her party encounter the Dalish Clan in the Exalted Plains, Solas and Lavellan find a quiet place to calm their thoughts.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Finding Home

He’d noticed her humming before. No real tune leaving her sealed lips, just a soft humm, vibrating in her chest and throughout her whole body, making his skin tingle.

She did it when she thought herself alone.

Cleaning her armor, writing reports, stitching up some damaged clothing of hers and even while reading one of the many books Dorian had recommended her.

And she did it to calm herself.

Sometimes she slumped against his side, in dim candlelight, after an exhausting day fighting demons and templars and other horrors. She often curled herself into his side, clutching his shirt or hand or arm - whatever she could reach - pressing herself against him with eyes shut thight, while he read a book or studied some of his papers and she started humming. Quiet first, and Solas had often enough thought it a trick of his mind, until the humming became a simple melodie, until the tension slowly left her body, her grib on him lightened and her racing heart slowed.  
Either she would hum herself too sleep or she would startle again, awoken from an unexpected noise, a flare of her mark or a lingering shadow in the back of her mind.

Whatever the case, her humming would stop and he would always feel a bit helpless, an aching feel of loss and regret and somehow melancholy overthrowing him. Her melodie was nothing like the songs of old Arlathan, but it seemed familiar nonetheless, a feeling just out of is reach, something he couldn’t quiet point a name to.

Lienne’s humming does not stop this time, but still he sees himself overthrown with an aching feeling in his chest, pressing him down and doubling the weight on his body and heart.

Forcing his eyes open, he looks into the vibrant blue of the sky.

The Exalted Plains are beautiful and devastating in all the wrong places. Sun and blue sky, birds chirping and grazing halla gving the impression of a serene place. But just around the corner are demons, Rage and Despair lingering on the roads ahead, burned down buildings and crackling rifts. His bare feet walking on dirt, but he feels like he’s walking upon all the bones of his people.

The Dalish Clan they had encountered a few hours ago lifted at least Lienne’s spirits a bit, but soon it had been clear the Dalish were treating them with mistrust. Solas himself regarded them just the same, but the look of shock and disbelief in Lienne’s eyes made him feel guilty. He could not yet bring himself regarding them as his people, but they were hers nonetheless.

They’d set up camp not far from the Clan. The calming, gentle sound of the river flowing nearby, the occasional call of a halla and the subtle noise made by Cassandra and Cole, who had settled down under a nearby group of trees.

Solas inhales deeply, a half-hearted attempt to calm his thoughts.

Her humming subsides for a moment, his heart clenching, until she regaines her voice and continues her melodie. A warm hand lingering on his head, his gaze shifts to see her face, eyes cast down and brows knit together in concentration.

He likes studying her face. How she crunches her nose, how her lashes catch the sunlight and make her eyes shine, how her ears twitch and her hair shimmers under the sun.

She catches his gaze and a smile tuggs at her lips, crinkling the skin under her eyes. Her humming subsides, but instead of mourning the passed music, he finds himself calm. His head lies in her lap, soft grass and earth underneath him. One of his hands reaching up to cup her cheek, she leans into his touch, closing her eyes and her smile growing wider. When she withdraws from his touch, she lifts her hands and brings a bunch of flowers into his vision.

“Look. I’m making a flower crown.”

He chuckles and inspects the bundle of flowers and grass before his eyes, unable to make out the supposed flower crown.

Solas shifts, lifts his head from her lap and sits up. Turning around and sitting himself cross-legged in front of her, he takes the flowers into his hands, careful not to crush the delicate blossoms beneath his touch.

Handing the bundle to him, Lienne folds her hands in her lap, beaming smile and eyes watching him exitedly.

Careful, Solas places the flowers on her head, making her cringe just the tiniest bit, before she straightens up again and balances the bundle on top of her head.

Her smile widens into a wide grin while the pile of flowers on her head falls appart and all the plants rain down on her.  
Lienne collapses with laugher, glistening eyes, red cheeks and petals in her hair and Solas feels totally at a loss. He laughes with her, absorbing the feeling of pure and utter bliss and memorizing every detail he can catch on her.

The time she recoveres, he starts plucking petals and grass out of her hair and from her clothes.

“Maybe you have to work on that skill some more. I’m sure you will get it right.”, he advises, picking a white flower from the ground and tucking it behind her ear. Her smile softenes, but after a moment she casts her eyes down, avoiding his gaze and fumbling with one of her shoe’s buckles, smile fading from her features.

Solas gently brushes a stray strand of hair out of her face, trying to catch her gaze once more.

“What is it, vhenan? Did I say something wrong?”

“No, not at all-”, Lienne stumbles over her words, rushing to calm his concern. “It is only me, emma lath. A… a friend of mine, Diani, she used to make flower crowns everytime she was sad. Which, in fact, wasn’t that often but she was good at it and her crowns always looked rather pretty. I thought maybe I could make one too.” Still fumbling with the buckle, her words are barely more than a whisper, but Solas catches their meaning.

He carefully places one hand on her thight, making her eyes flicker to his.

“Why are you sad, vhenan?”

A low puff of air escapes her and she shakes her head. All happiness from before is gone.

“We are one people. I suppose I haven’t been that close to home since the Conclave’s Explosion. The smell of halla and herbs, leather drying in the sun, the creaking of Arravels, elven tongue rolling over their lips. This is home, you know.” A sad smile graces her lips again, before she casts her eyes on him, swallows and continues: “This is home to me and you can’t imagine how happy I am to stumble upon another Dalish Clan. But they do not treat me as one of their own.Well, they try but they do not trust me or my intentions. They think me a puppet of the Chantry and-” A cheerless laughter escapes her, she throws her head back, watching the fields around them until returning to his eyes. “I suppose I am. I always have been but I thought my own people would… well, I thought they would…”

Her words die in her throat and Solas knows this feeling just too well. Meeting what he thought were his people turned out wrong. He has no responsibility to them, they are not his people, but they are hers and somehow this changes everything. He wants her to be happy, wants her to smile and laugh and humm and he never wants her to stop but it is a cruel world he made and it is his fault things are as they are. He wants her to be happy but instead she gets denied and avoided by her own people.

His thoughts wander off, to a time long gone, where everything seemed wrong and bad and he was willing to give his live to make it better. How cruel that the world he made is completely different and even worse than the one he was so willing to sacrifice.

Her touch breaks his line of thoughts, brings him back to where he sits, sun shining, petals and flowers and grass around them.

“My worries are not yours to carry, vhenan. Do not trouble yourself.”

He can’t resist but smile at those words. How does someone like him deserve someone like her?

She looks aside, catching her own hands in a thight grasp before musing: “I suppose the Inquisition is my home now. I have an Inner Circle, friends-”  
She looks at him and softens. “I have you.”

His breath is catching, he can’t bring himself to move but look sadly at her. His heart sits heavy in his chest, thrumming with sorrow and regret.

But Lienne smiles at him in earnest now, picks another flower from the ground and tucks it behind his ear. Her hand wanders to his face, craddling it and he leans into her sun-warmed touch, eyes closing and savouring just for a moment.

“Maybe you are the only home I need.”, she says.

Eyes shut tight, lips sealed and fist clechend into the earth beneath him, Solas feels his heart shatter.

Oh what a cruel, cruel world he made.


End file.
